It’s a shame that Girl Scout Cookie season is so short. Although it gives me something to look forward to at the end of March, once May rolls around I’ve completely cleared out my cookie stash. If you missed Girl Scout Cookie season (or you just miss it emotionally), I’d like to help you work through these tough months before the next one rolls around. For the next few weeks, I’ll be testing out copycat recipes for the most popular flavors so you can make them at home. Let’s start with the superstar of simplicity: Thin Mints.
All GSC fans know that the thin mint sets the standard for mint cookies. It’s a small bite. A crunchy, no-frills chocolate cookie on the inside with a thin chocolate shell. Then the cool breeze of mint passes through. It’s always best to buy at least two boxes: one for the first 10 minutes, and the second to pace yourself.
Tips on making Thin Mints at home
Imitating this famous cookie is relatively simple. The cookie itself can be made with any reliable chocolate pâte sablée recipe (essentially a mixture of butter, sugar, a bit of egg, cocoa, and flour) with the addition of mint extract. The dough is easy to roll out, and baking them is a breeze. To make the cookie dough, I modified this recipe from Baked by an Introvert.
The site above mentions “cookies are best when served cold,” which is true—many of us enjoy thin mints out of the freezer—but that’s less a nice tip here and more a necessity. That's because the coating is too damn soft at room temperature, due to the recipe's inclusion of vegetable oil. To get around this, I recommend using melted chocolate morsels only, which will still be tacky at room temperature but not gooey. Alternatively, you can use chocolate melting wafers (like the one below), which are designed to set without tempering.
When rolling out the cookies in this recipe, try to take the dough down to shy of a quarter-inch in thickness for a more accurate copycat (they’re Thin Mints after all). If the dough is too hard to handle at that thinness, it’s okay to make thick mints. Just make sure to bake them for a minute or two longer so they’re crisp after they cool.
Thin Mints Copycat Recipe
Ingredients:
For the dough
1 ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
1 stick butter, room temperature
⅓ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon peppermint extract
1 egg white
For the chocolate coating
¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels, melted (or melting wafers)
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet tray with parchment paper.
2. Use a rubber spatula and mix the soft butter and sugar together in a medium bowl until well combined. There’s no need to make it fluffy. Add the salt, egg, and extracts. In a small bowl, whisk the flour and cocoa powder together to disperse the cocoa evenly, then mix it into the butter mixture in two installments. This will help ensure you don’t end up wearing the cocoa powder. The dough will be thick but workable.
2. Place the dough on plastic wrap or parchment paper. Flatten the dough into discs with the wrap, and pop them into the fridge for about 30 minutes.
3. Dust the countertop with a bit of flour and unwrap the dough. Roll it into a thin sheet, rotating it after every pass with the pin to ensure the dough isn’t sticking. Use a round cookie cutter, 1.5-inch or 2-inch is fine, and cut out circles. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet an inch apart. Bake them at 350°F for 10 to 12 minutes, or until firm and matte. Cool them completely.
4. To make the chocolate coating, gently melt the morsels in the microwave in 30 or 15 second bursts. Dunk each cookie in the coating and fish it out with a fork. Use the flat edge of a rubber spatula to swipe off most of the chocolate so the coating is thin. Put the cookies on a wire rack to cool, and you can even pop them in the fridge for ten minutes to speed up the cooling.
Enjoy out of the fridge or freezer for a chilled treat, and you can thank the Girl Scouts for this inspiration by donating if you like.